chrismakris

We took the Southern Caribbean last January. We arrived two days early. We made friends with a lady at the Martini Bar who had to catch the cruise in St Croix.

They we're supposed to arrive in SJU 4 hrs before the cruise but because the flight was delayed leaving Houston the husband had to spend $3000 to fly all six of them to the next port.

The lady said she could see the Summit sailing away as they were coming in for their landing.

They lucked out as the husband won all the money back in the casino.

I would get in at least a day early.

Happy sailings.

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Hello.

85 days and counting til our next cruise and I was hoping the CC'ers could help me out.

We are thinking about choosing our next cruise while onboard. We have $500 of OBC($250 from Celebrity and $250 as a gift from a family member).

Can we using any of that to put as a deposit towards our next cruise? I would think yes with the gifted one and no from the OBC from Celebrity.

Thanks for all your help.

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I'm sure CNN will have a field day with this with all their anti-cruise coverage. (and I say this because all I ever see on CNN when it comes to cruising is norovirus stories.)

Hello,

I would jump on that in a heartbeat. My wife and I booked a 7 day Caribbean onboard last January for $1299/pp for an S2 on the Summit(lowest category of suite). Since then, the all the suites sold out and the lowest I saw one go for was $1599 in the same category.

Needless to say we got a smoking deal especially with the OBC and the 123 promo included.

Happy sailings

Maybe they do a 7 day coastal followed by a 2 day cruise to nowhere, or a full 9 day cruise? Wish they would announce it already.

I could see a 9 day Alaska or a 9 nine day Pacific Coastal that runs north and south. If they go Pacific Coastal, count me in.

Looking forward to finally being able to book for 2016/17!

Hello NOSAints1

The Summit is a great ship. The Martini Bar is a great place to hang out for before and after drinks. Your DW might not want to go to the room after. It was a great experience.

The shows we went to are OK. The comedian they had was pretty good. All ages one night and then an adults show really late on the 2nd last night of the cruise.

And yes they do serve Coke.

P.S. Go Seahwaks!!! ;)

I'm sorry to hear about what is happening to your cruise.

Hopefully you can make other arrangements.

On the other hand the thought of a Pacific Coastal would be awesome as it is one the cruises that I wanted to do before Celebrity stopped doing them this past year.

We are hoping to this excursion as well. How many people are usually on the boats?

$300!!!! Wow. Very generous indeed. Got a feeling there is going to be a long wait for spa treatments and specialty restaurants over the next couple of days.

Enjoy that OBC everyone!!!!

Hello sperkins,

I think you'll always find that these kind of questions always will run about 50% for one ship and 50% for the other. Personally we were on the Summit last January and yes, while she did have some wear and tear on her she was great ship. Everyone on it was friendly, the room was nice, the food was excellent etc. We liked her so much we booked again our 2nd night on the ship for the opposite itinerary for this January.

I think the question you should ask yourself is whether this is a vacation to relax or a vacation to see as much as possible. If it's to relax, then do the Eastern Caribbean for sure. Days at sea sitting by the pool, drinking margaritas. Can't go wrong with that.

If you want to go to bed and wake up the next day and explore and see as much as you can, definitely do the Southern Caribbean.

Either way your on vacation. Enjoy your trip!!!!!!!!!

Hello,

Find out which port in the middle of the cruise is closest to town and treat that day almost as a "sea day" and take it really slow.

Wake up around 8 and go have breakfast in the buffet. Slip into town around 10 am and explore for 4-5 hours. Go to a museum, have lunch at a little cafe and people watch, maybe go see a tourist spot that isn't seen by any of the ships excursions. Around 2 pm head back to the cruise ship and relax by the pool until it's time to leave port. It will be a nice little break from the routine and you'll feel refreshed the next day.

So In all this discussion of what ChoiceAir will do and not do and dealing with the airline directly, I received two emails this morning. The first one was from ChoiceAir telling me that my itinerary had been changed.

I now go from SEA-IAH-SJU instead of SEA-IAD-SJU.

The second email came from United 45 minutes later informing me of my schedule change.

It's makes me feel better knowing that, yes schedule changes can happen and ChoiceAir will be there to let me know. It also makes me wonder why United's email was 45 minutes later.

Not sure if you've booked your flights yet, but Alaska now has new Boeing 737's with the new slimmer seats. I flew in from San Diego last month and noticed that there seemed to be more leg room because of the new seats. Don't know if the flight will have the new plane, but might be worth the chance.

Yes the airline is usually best option here to sort issues

Probably shouldn't ask but.....did you ever think about calling UNITED while you were standing in line? If that line was so bad, you could have likely been rebooked over the phone and gotten those seats together. Duh!!

I'll give you the quick recap. While waiting in line during the storms at the beginning of last January, I was also on the phone(on hold) with United. Unfortunately I got to the lady at the front of the ticket counter before I got to someone at United directly.

We were flying out of Seattle that day and we we're one of two flights affected that morning at that time. We only waited in line for 15 minutes. Just wasn't my day that day.

With so many cancellations that day who knows how long I would have waited on the phone. We eventually got to Puerto Rico(before the ship left), so it was all good.

The main thing that i'll reiterate is sometime between checking in and going through security, my flight was cancelled and I didn't receive a notification from United. Maybe I would have had I booked through ChoiceAir and saved myself a few minutes and gotten on that earlier flight.

Never hurts to have a possible back up plan.

I agree that I shouldn't be reliant on them completely and if possible I would love if they do figure it out for us, but having gone through what we did last year the "added security" is helpful.

Last year sometime between leaving the hotel and getting through security, our flight was cancelled. No alert from United or nothing said at the ticket counter when checking our bags.

When we finally got to the gate we were at the back of the lineup for re-ticketing. Somehow, United put me on a 9pm flight to Newark and then connecting to San Juan and then my wife was on an earlier flight to Dallas(?) or Houston(?). Can't remember which one. She would get into San Juan the same day. The gentleman infront of me got the last ticket on the same flight as my wife.

Needless to say my wife flew with me and we were in San Juan 24 hours after our scheduled arrival.

Would ChoiceAir have had me on the same flight as my wife? Maybe. But at least I could have called them to see what they could have done while I waited in line.

I must mention that I am only using it the one way.

ChoiceAir: Assured Arrival

RCCL is very interested in ensuring you get to your Cruise, and takes advantage of knowing your travel arrangements to monitor your flights, intervening when possible to avert delays due to airline schedule changes, delays, and cancellations. When they are unable to act pre-emptively, they will continue to work with the traveler and airline to find an alternate route - even on another airline - at no additional cost to the guest. This service includes getting the guest to the original embarkation port, or the next available port whenever it is practical. They cover the modified airline ticket, hotels en route (when necessary) and ground transfers. At times, there is controversy over whether this is a guarantee. The truth is... it's not a guarantee. If there are massive flight cancellations for many days due to natural disasters, or if there are simply no commercial seats available that will enable them to re-route, they clearly will not be able to make it happen. If there are government regulations (Jones Act) that preclude the guest from joining in another port (Most often an issue for Alaska, Hawaii, and New England/Canada sailings), they will not be able to help. However, in the vast majority of the situations when flights are delayed or canceled due to weather and mechanicals, the company has been able to get the guest to the ship to enjoy most or all of their Cruise vacation. This is not insurance or a guarantee, but an additional service provided exclusively for guests who book air with them. The benefit to the customer is they have a point of contact if things go wrong, they do not have to spend any money up-front, or file a claim to take advantage of the service.

Waterbug: For me the thought of having an extra person to help me. The benefit for me is not having to wait in a lineup at the airport for 2 hours or on the phone with the airline to find out what my new routing is.

I can phone ChoiceAir and probably get a quicker response and maybe make other arrangements quickly. It might be me cancelling a hotel reservation that I can't make before the cancellation deadline or finding a hotel to spend the night in before the ones I want to stay in are sold out.

Probably the most extensive FF conglom out there. Are you aware you can do your desired itin/ line, submit to Choice Air for pricing? They are just a booking agency.I believe they book your flights AFTER final payment is made.

By the way, booking Choice Air won't have anything to do with your frequent flyer points, it is just a booking agency. What matters is the agreements between United and the airline you are trying to collect points on, and the class of travel you have booked on United.

Cruisestitch: I was able to get my Aeroplan number added when I went to the United site after I had booked the ticket. ChoiceAir would only allow me to enter in a United MileagePlus #.

Zoncom: I decided to go with ChoiceAir because after the nightmarish trip we took last year to get to our cruise I felt it would be easier if I had ChoiceAir to help me in case something went wrong again. I think I used up half my travel phone minutes last year in the first 24 hours of my trip.

I was able to book the United flights at the same price as the United website, so I figure I'm ahead.

I am booking with ChoiceAir and am going to be flying United. Will I be able to choose a different air mileage program to collect points as I don't collect United points.

The reason I'm looking at PR is I can't leave my office for a 10-11 day cruise out of South Florida. We also have frequent flyer points that get us to PR, so the flight really is a non-issue.

 

Both prices are right at $600/person, with each offering certain perks. As far as I can tell, the prices is apples to apples.

 

Jewel stops at the following ports:

 

Tortola

St. Kitts

St. Maarten

Dominica

Barbados

 

While Summit heads to:

 

St. Croix

St. Kitts

Dominica

Grenada

St. Thomas

 

Both leave Dec. 6, so school is still in session in PR (and everywhere else for that matter).

 

With 5 ports and 1 sea day, I doubt we'll be spending much time at the pool (besides the sea day).

 

I'm most concern with food quality, night life, age and the over all feel/quality of the experience.

We did the Summit itinerary last January. We enjoyed it a lot and the Summit is a great Ship. Grenada and Dominica were highlights as well as St. Thomas.

Glad to hear your trip on the Summit was as good as ours last January. Do you have any pictures of your stateroom as we will be staying in the room right next to you in January.

The Martini Bar is an awesome place to spend the evening.

Usually if they offer a discount it will be on the first night. But if they don't have a lot of reservations later on in the week they offer another one.

Qsine is awesome by the way and we can't wait to do Normandie in January.

Just booking flights for our trip and was just wondering how long we have before we have to disembark.

The ship is the Summit in San Juan. It leaves at 8:30 @ night the day we depart.

You could do both. Book now directly with X, then when on board, see if you can get a better deal. If so, cancel the earlier cruise. As long as you are not near final payment don't think you have anything to lose doing so. saol

This would be the way to go. Book the cruise and if the price doesn't drop before your cruise then you got the best possible price and the 123 deal. It just depends on the OBC you are going to get if you want to rebook.

DW and I went on a cruise. We had already booked our next cruise before we got on ship but we decided to look into possibly booking another while on board. We went to the Future Cruises area and were talking with the gentleman there and while asking us some questions we told him we were already booked with the Summit again for next year in a balcony.

He checked our booking and rebooked us in a SS for $200/pp more plus a $250 OBC and the 123 Go.

So for basically $150 we got an upgrade to a suite(albeit the first level of suite on the Summit), OBC and the 123 package.

Hello Kelmac

If you have points for a hotel, I just did a dummy booking out of Phoenix (Nov 26-Dec 7) on US Airways and the cost is $389/pp.

You would save almost $800(then subtract the cost of gas and hotel and parking). If you are saving at least $300 it might be worth it.